


Sometimes life is a chocolate made by an innovative but inexperienced chocolatier which decorum forces you to swallow.

by alachat



Series: It's a small, small world [4]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, Haikyuu!! Manga Spoilers, some time after high school and before brazil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:55:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26678578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alachat/pseuds/alachat
Summary: But it will get better.
Relationships: Oikawa Tooru & Tendou Satori
Series: It's a small, small world [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1844419
Comments: 11
Kudos: 72





	Sometimes life is a chocolate made by an innovative but inexperienced chocolatier which decorum forces you to swallow.

Tooru receives a box of chocolates he doesn’t know whether to eat, burn, or use as mouse baits.

The box itself is as nondescript as any other branded packaging that uses minimalism as a shorthand for “no one should ever pay that much for this much”. It’s a recyclable paper box that feels solid in his hands, with black letters spelling out both the _romaji_ and the _hiragana_ for “Tendou Satori” on pale cyan. 

“Two shades lighter than Tiffany blue,” in his mind booms a laugh from the other side of the Atlantic, boundlessly enthusiastic.

“I never thought you would go for something this, well, non-shocking,” his own voice springs from the same memory in response.

“It’s just a box, Oikawa- _kun_. What needs to surprise you, shock you, stun you, is the thing you find inside."

True to those words, in another two-shades-lighter-than-Tiffany-blue box a year ago, Tooru found a voodoo doll in teal with protruding brown eyes and a wire stitched mouth that Tendou bought from a street vendor in Prague, because “it reminds me of you, somehow”. 

That he burned. Two days later, he sent a box of Bariloche chocolates as an apology for “letting the neighbour dog tear the doll to pieces”. 

To his minor relief, inside this year's box are actual chocolates. Three rows of round balls in familiar blue and yellow, each with different designs. They make him grin. Paradise is something one can never quite forget.

The scribbles on the inner menu card read: “Congrats on winning the South American Club Championship”. Unsigned, barely legible. Tooru's grin grows a little wider. 

But memories are mighty, and there are certain flavours that no amount of time, distance, scribbles on fancy paper, messages at odd hours and souvenirs that are even odder can erase. He can feel the very first chocolate Tendou gave him several years ago scraping his tongue, pouring tar over his tastebuds, clogging his throat with distilled soot. He tries not to swallow.

A sudden urge to call Tendou and apologise for thinking badly of his works overcomes Tooru. He wants to tell Tendou that he knows how good Tendou has become, he doesn’t doubt Tendou’s skills, it’s not Tendou, it’s him and his too vivid, too lurid memories. But that would be an extremely weird and hard to explain conversation starter. So he does the next sensible thing and calls Iwaizumi.

The phone rings once. Twice. Thrice. Iwaizumi grumbles over the line:

“Oikawa, what’s wrong? It’s 2am, are you okay? I swear if you’re okay I’ll—“

“Iwa- _chan_ , Tendou sent me chocolates and I don’t know whether or not I should eat them.”

Iwaizumi takes a deep breath once. Twice. Thrice. 

Then, he hangs up.

It’s another 6 hours before Tooru opens the box of chocolates again. 

He picks one up. An MVL200, Mikasa’s first coloured competition ball. It looks perfect up close, with all the details sharp and clean, the glaze glossy, the colours vibrant. It's quite hefty too, for a piece of confectionery. The menu card tells him that it’s lemon chocolate with 70% cocoa.

Tooru takes another look at Tendou’s scrawls, then pops the ball of chocolate into his mouth.

\---

Dying must come close to this, Tooru thought. 

It was _Obon_ , so like any filial children of the land, he came back to Miyagi after two years in San Juan. His plane touched down three days ago, and, after the initial jubilation of homecoming, he was now feeling the full brunt of the combined differences in time zones and latitudes between Japan and Argentina. 

Strong as they were, had to be, his body and mind still couldn’t adjust quickly to the twelve hour difference. His internal clock had been turned upside down, spun around a few times, then smashed to smithereens. He ransacked the fridge at midnight. He sat at the dinner table with just several glasses of water, giving a slightly edited account of his life in San Juan to his uncles and trying to swallow the peculiar flavour of his aunts' adulation. He dozed off at lunch with Matsukawa yesterday. 

“You should have stayed at home and slept,” Matsukawa frowned with concern.

“Mattsun, that’s not how you get over jet lag,” Tooru said, rubbing his eyes raw. “Besides, we don’t have much time.”

He had close to a month at home, but Hanamaki and Matsukawa would leave on Sunday. So would Yuda and Yahaba and his sister and his dad and his nephew and anyone and everyone with a life in Japan. A home in Japan.

He rubbed his eyes a tad harder at the thought. 

Worse still was the difference in season. It was the end of winter in San Juan, and it just started to get warm, the air dry, the sky pale with clouds, jackets and thick denims filling the streets. Hot _yerbiado_ was still necessary to take the chills off mornings, but early spring breeze already came as a sweet chaser after the cold bite of wintry blow.

His hometown, by contrast, was hell’s sauna. The heat was head-pounding, and the humidity smothered every breath he took. Miyagi summer was always able to dissolve everything: the earth, the sky, the rocks, the people. Three minutes away from any cooling devices and he turned into a puddle of sweat. 

It wasn’t that Tooru minded sweating. His choice of career required sweating. He sweated during roadwork, during drills, during workouts, scrimmages, friendlies, month-long tournaments. Almost everyday of the week, mornings, afternoons, even evenings, sometimes. He knew well how sweat trickled down his face, body, limps, how it stung eyes, how it made clothes sticky and fingers so slippery that he had to grab the ball a little tighter. 

Sweating on the court where he ran and jumped and blocked and spiked until his legs shook, his arms trembled, his lungs burned for air was cooling. Calming. The most tangible proof of his efforts, of him trying, chasing, even when he couldn’t score, couldn’t win. It was relieving.

But under the Miyagi sun where he sweat just from standing, sitting, existing, the sweat on his skin and the humid air coalesced into a thick, heated resin. So here he was, on the first day of _Obon_ , sitting under a tree in the town cemetery, slowly wasting away. The family were grave visiting, but his sister had mercifully spared him the cleaning chores. She thought he would break things in his current state. He didn't protest. She wasn't wrong.

He closed his eyes to hide from the sun. Homecoming was everything that he didn't expect. When he was in San Juan, Japan, Miyagi, his tiny home town, the park where he and Iwaizumi spent thousands of afternoons catching bugs and climbing trees, Seijou gym where he and his team roamed and ruled, the bedroom where he stayed up late watching taped matches and dozed off in the afternoons trying to finish his homework, was his court. His castle. 

Life in a foreign country where he barely spoke the language was, well, tough. Trying to find his footing in the cut-throat world of professional volleyball in a foreign league was excruciating, sometimes soul-crushing, the highs not yet high enough to make up for the lows. Many practices sapped him of joy. Many mornings he woke up restless. Many nights he lay sleepless with pain from bruised skin, overtaxed muscles, and marred ambitions, dreaming of home.

Yet now that he was here, all he wanted to do was run back to San Juan.

His phone chimed. He squinted to read the characters washed away by the glaring sun. A text from Iwaizumi.

"How's _Obon_ going? Shame I can't be home this year. Have you seen Makki and Mattsun? Ring me when you can. Freaking watch the time zones though."

He felt trapped like an unfortunate cicada entombed in an amber, drowning while envying his cohort, whose mad summer symphony was driving him to the edge of his existence. 

His home, his castle, was no more. At least not the one in his waking dreams. The park remained, but Iwaizumi was an 8,500 km away eastwards. Seijou gym looked the same, but the shouts, the laughs, the cheers of his teammates had faded into hollow echoes of a youth spent. It was gone, transfigured into something of a ghost, recognisable but see-through, haunting but would never be enough. 

Worst of all was the difference between then and now. The isolation of a king without a court. The alienation of being between homes, one lost in the past, one not yet realised. 

Tooru wanted to breathe but couldn’t. The summer air was so viscous that it got stuck in his throat. He swallowed, trying to dislodge the blockage. He took another breath, slower and shallower this time. The air burned his windpipes and dripped into his lungs. 

Another breath. He had learnt by trial and error that as long as he kept breathing.

And another breath. 

"Bonjour! Fancy seeing you here, pretty boy."

Tooru knew that merry voice. Purple, white, red, a wall of miracles and lucky guesses. 

“Long time no see! Ever since, what, the Interhigh two years ago? God, it has been ages.”

Tendou Satori was no longer red. His hair had been cropped close to the scalp. He wasn’t purple and white either, just a white T-shirt and dark blue Bermudas. There was a tote bag in his hands instead of a volleyball. Tooru half-heartedly computed the fact that this was the first time he ever saw Tendou out of Shiratorizawa uniform. 

“You’re here for _Obon_ too? I’ve heard you’ve gone off to Argentina. How is it?”

“How do you know that?” He winced at the _ru_ sound.

“Every one in Miyagi knows. Every one who plays volleyball anyway. And their mums.”

Tooru winced again. He squeezed his eyes shut.

“Why the grumpy face? It’s the heat, right? I feel you. Nothing whacks you like Miyagi heat.”

Pain surged behind Tooru’s eyelids and leaked into his snarl.

“Why, why are you talking to me? We are not friends.”

“We are not strangers either, Oikawa- _kun_ ,” Tendou’s high-speed high-pitched sing-song voice mellowed into something almost soothing. "And you look like you need someone to take you out of your head.” 

Sharp, but soothing. 

Tooru exhaled. Tendou squatted down next to him, elbows on knees, chin in hands, eyes at something a handspan away from his face. A speck of dust. An invisible crack in the air. A piece of Tooru's mind he found on the side of the road, which he was now guarding until Tooru came back. 

“Do you want some water?” Tendou asked a few deep breaths later. Soothing. 

“You should have started with that," Tooru grumbled. He reached for the bottle Tendou offered. 

“So, how are you doing all the way over there?” Tendou continued to stared at the empty space in front of Tooru.

“Fine.” The water was almost as warm as his daily _yerbiado_. Tooru drank it anyway. “I guess.”

“What about you? Are you in college now?” Tooru tried to be courteous.

He couldn't be at Sendai, otherwise Hanamaki would never let Tooru hear the end of it. Tokyo, then. Or maybe even Osaka.

“I’m in Paris.” 

Tooru choked. 

“Paris as in, France?” He whipped his head up to face Tendou. 

“Your geography might be better than Wakatoshi- _kun_ ," Tendou joked, but his eyes gleamed _finally_. "Yes, Paris in France.”

“What are you doing there?”

“I’m in culinary school?”

“You can cook?”

Tooru felt a phantom whiplash beginning to seize his jaw.

“Don’t be that surprised. Yes, I can cook. Can you?”

Tooru opened his mouth, thought twice, then decided against it. Tendou laughed at his non-answer. 

“Well, I’m not trying to become a chef. I’m training to be a chocolatier.”

Tooru briefly entertained the thought that he had been hallucinating the entire conversation. Maybe he had passed out and got lost on his way to limbo and this Tendou, this Paris dwelling tote bag carrying barely recognisable Tendou, was a part of his overheated subconscious mind. Briefly.

“You really should see your face right now, Oikawa- _kun_ ,” Tendou guffawed, his eyes shining with tears. His laugh was still the same. Still hair-rising enough to unnerve graveyard visitors and volleyball athletes alike. Still loud enough to fill a volleyball court. Still red enough to leave green echoes in Tooru's mind.

The essence hadn't left, Tooru realised.

Tendou let the last of his laugh fade into the windless air. He then fished out of his bag a glass container. Inside were small pieces of chocolate, curiously shaped, dark brown, smooth and shiny.

“Here, have some. _Ozen_ leftovers.”

“You use these as _ozen_?” 

"Yeah, I made them after all."

Tooru approached the chocolate like they were mangled, hungry stray cats ready to claw and chew his fingers beyond recognition. He touched one of them. It didn't stir. It also didn't seem to have teeth. That was a good start.

He picked it up. The glossy finish caught the summer light and glinted innocently. Maybe Tendou was a much better cook than he had given him credits for. Cooking skills were not on the list of things he could learn from his opponents on the court. By his side Tendou was looking at him with a infectiously confident grin. Maybe this piece of chocolate was indeed safe to eat, tasty even. He took another look at Tendou, then popped it into his mouth.

And choked for the second time in less than 5 minutes.

It was a new record.

The moment Tooru bit into the chocolate he knew he had made a grave mistake. The chocolate was uniquely and lethally bitter, with the smokiness of sweet potatoes burnt to charcoal. Tears filled his eyes; his tongue protested violently against the cruel treatment. His brain half froze from the onslaught on his sense of taste. His body doubled over as if in agony. He wanted to spit it out, but decorum forced it down his throat. Only by good karma did he manage to swallow it.  
  
"You use these as _ozen_?" Tooru wanted to bellow, but his voice came out in a feeble wheeze.

“It’s not that bad," Tendou pouted a little. "It won't kill you, and the sweet taste comes after the bitterness.”

“What the hell did you put in it anyway?” 

“ _Shochu_. You know all those fancy liquor chocolate? I was wondering if I could do the same with Japanese spirit. It's really not that bad.”

Tooru gulped down the rest of the water in Tendou's bottle. Then he levelled his flattest, deadest stare at Tendou. 

“Fine, it tastes a bit off," Tendou grudgingly admitted. "For now," he added while getting up from his squat. Trying to work out the kinks in his backs and shoulders, he stretched out his arms towards the sky, and in the process grew taller than Mount Fuji, taller than Mount Aconcagua. So tall that Tooru had to look up. 

"But it will get better," Tendou's eyes shone as bright as any snow-capped summits. "I will get better."

Sharp.

“Do you miss volleyball?” Tooru asked. He wasn't quite sure what prompted the question. Perhaps it was the look on Tendou's face, which reminded him of the Shiratorizawa middle blocker he faced once upon a youth. Perhaps it was his declaration of war against the world, against his own limits, something Tooru knew by heart, but his heart was an impossible maze, and somewhere along the fifth jet-lagged dream he had forgotten to recite it. 

“Of course, the court was my paradise,” Tendou replied, nostalgia a flat note in his voice. "But I'm going to build myself a new one."

Brick by brick by broken brick by bruise by bravery by blood by blunder by belief. 

Tooru thought of his half-built castle across the Pacific. 

“You seem so sure,” he let the heat wring out the last vulnerable part of himself. Might as well. 

“There’s no other choice, is there?” Tendou shrugged. He offered Tooru a hand. 

“No, there isn’t,” Tooru took Tendou’s hand, which was already thick with calluses, and let Tendou pull him up. 

“Thank you,” Tooru said when he was on his feet, “for the water.”

“Don’t sweat it. I’ve been there before,” Tendou said, meeting Tooru's eyes. 

Miyagi was still hell's sauna. The heat continued its pounding on his head, and the humidity refused to let go of his throat. But he decided he would struggle against the resin and become the loudest fucking cicada out there, drowning out the mad summer symphony. 

"You know what," Tendou went on, and Tooru realised he hadn't let go of Tendou's hand. "To make up for the bad chocolate, I will send you a proper box when we both get better," Tendou smiled, white teeth baring. The offer sounded akin to a challenge.

The essence was still there. Maybe that was enough.

Tooru sealed the deal with a hand-shake strong enough to whiten knuckles.

The _shochu_ filled chocolate had a vanilla sweet aftertaste that lingered for days in his mouth and for years in a corner of his mind. 

\---

The text comes before he can swallow. 

"Oikawa- _kun_ , have you tried the chocolates yet?" it reads. Tendou's timing has always been effortlessly good. 

"How do you know I have received it?"

"International parcel tracking is a thing you know. So have you tried them?" 

“I have. They are better." Much better. The very best of an award-wining chocolatier with a TV documentary or two under his belt. 

"But they are not _shochu_ chocolates." Tooru is not a masochist. He's also not prone to bouts of nostalgia. Not really. He just likes to push his opponent. 

"Win the World Cup," Tendou texts back half a minute later.

"Deal."

**Author's Note:**

> Argentina is pronounced アルゼンチン /a.ru.zen.chin/ in Japanese.
> 
>  _Ozen_ : Japanese food tray/food offerings for past relatives during _Obon_.
> 
> I know, I know, I should be banned from titling things.
> 
> I started this fic at the height of summer for _Obon_ , which was a month and a half ago. I kept getting severely distracted by one or four other fics. It is still the result of my extreme aversion to summer heat and excessive projection. 
> 
> Find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/alachat_) or [CC](https://curiouscat.me/alachat_) at your own peril.


End file.
